Dan Pashman: This episode contains explicit language.

Dan Pashman: A common situation in your house growing up was that your sister would go hunting with your dad.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: And you would stay home with your mom to bake? 

Matteo Lane: Yeah. I don't like hunting. I just couldn't do it. My dad would take me, and God bless him. He has two gay sons and my straight sister ended up being his hunting partner. So everyone kind of got what they wanted. My sister really had to be everything. She gave the grandkids and could be the hunter. [LAUGHTER]

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Dan Pashman: This is The Sporkful, it's not for foodies it's for eaters, I'm Dan Pashman. Each week on our show we obsess about food to learn more about people.

Dan Pashman: Matteo Lane is a comedian known for his takes on family, relationships and food. He often shares videos on Instagram of what he’s eating, and cooking. These videos have been so popular that he’s just released a cookbook, entitled Your Pasta Sucks, which we’ll discuss later.

Dan Pashman: In his stand up specials, Matteo is well known for dishing out advice to audience members…

Audience member:  How can you handle as soon to be overbearing mother-in-law?

Matteo Lane: How do you… so is your mother-in-law Italian? 

Audience member:  Yes. 

Matteo Lane: Okay, and is he good to you? 

Audience member:  Very. 

Matteo Lane:  Do you feel that his mother has con, still has control over him? 

Audience member:   Yes. 

Matteo Lane: That will never go away.  

Dan Pashman: Matteo clearly has strong opinions about food and relationships, and gives a lot of advice. So when he came into the studio I decided to get his take on a question we got from a Sporkful listener named Zoe:

Dan Pashman: Zoe says, I love food and eating the saucier the better. When I'm eating something saucy, I like to get into it, eat the whole thing right away, and let myself get as messy as needed. As a result, I'll get sauce all over my face and hands if eating by hand.

Dan Pashman: Then once I'm finished, I'll clean myself up. Then once I'm finished, I'll clean myself up. But my boyfriend thinks I should be wiping the sauce off my face after every messy bite to keep tidy and presentable. I'd rather wait till the end, enjoy the experience and not worry about how I look. He finds my messiness crude, especially if we're eating something saucy in public, to the point that he will swoop in and wipe my face off for me.

Matteo Lane: I hate both of these people. I hate this. Is it a woman? Is it? What's her name? 

Dan Pashman:Uh, Zoe. 

Matteo Lane: Zoe. This is insane. This is unhinged behavior. This is disgusting. It's embarrassing. You should be publicly shamed.

Dan Pashman: She should be or he should be?

Matteo Lane: She should be. And he needs to break up with her. You're gonna sit, sit there like a one-year-old with a bib on and a high chair getting red sauce all over your face. What the fuck is wrong with you? What an embarrassment. That makes me so mad because the worst thing in the world for me, is listening to someone eat with their mouth open.

Matteo Lane: I think if you eat with your mouth open after the age of 10, like you should be arrested. It's such a disgusting, I don't get like, how — Can't you hear yourself that you're eating like a fucking cow? 

Dan Pashman: Some people are more sensitive to that sound than others.

Matteo Lane: No but it doesn't matter. It looks disgusting. Like, regardless of whether you have some sort of genetic disposition to be really annoyed by the sound of someone eating with their mouth open. You wanna sit there and look like a fucking farm animal while you're eating your salad at lunch? Uh, I can't get over it. 

Dan Pashman: Are you a person… If you're eating with someone and the person you're eating with has something stuck in their teeth.

Matteo Lane: I tell 'em.

Dan Pashman: You will? 

Matteo Lane: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: What if you like just met five minutes ago?

Matteo Lane: I'll tell them. I'm also a comedian. It's hard for me to not say the thing that's on my mind.

Matteo Lane: We're not soft.

Dan Pashman: I'm with you. I'm very big on telling people when they have something in their teeth.

Matteo Lane: Cause I'd want someone to tell me!

Dan Pashman: Exactly. Even if you just met. Because it does, it does – If you just met someone, you're like, Hey, great to meet you, by the way, you have spinach in your teeth.

Matteo Lane: Yes.

Dan Pashman: It does make that person feel a little bit, sort of like, um, embarrassed. And so I feel bad for making them feel embarrassed.

Matteo Lane: But then I'm only thinking about that for 45 minutes. I'm watching you with a piece of spinach flipping in the wind.

Dan Pashman: Yeah. I can’t hear a word you're saying. I can't hear you over the spinach in your teeth.

Matteo Lane: Yes, I agree. 

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Matteo Lane: I would tell them.

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Dan Pashman: Now that you have a sense of Matteo, let’s go back.

Dan Pashman: He was born and raised in Arlington Heights, Illinois, a Chicago suburb. His father is Irish-American, his mother’s part Mexican and part Italian. But the Italian side seems to have had the strongest influence on him…

Matteo Lane: So I was completely abducted into my mom's family. I think I have like 25 cousins or something. And we all grew up together and eating at each other's houses and sharing food and sharing lives and sharing, like, it was just very communal.

Dan Pashman: There were big family meals on Sundays, complete with the giant pot of red sauce and meatballs. Dinners out to their favorite Italian restaurant, where they’d sit at a long table. Those gatherings weren’t just where the family came together, they also planted the seeds for Matteo’s career…

Matteo Lane: I hear a lot of comedians say this, like, they grew up in really large families. And if you're gonna say something at the table, it had to be funny.

Matteo Lane: My family really works off one upping each other. So if you say a joke, someone adds on a tag, someone adds on another tag, someone adds on another tag. And all these back and forth conversations with adults and kids, it really kind of helped sort of establish my comedic, uh, tone. I mean, a lot of stuff I do on stage is basically just my Aunt Cindy, I watch my Aunt Cindy, she'll tell a story. She has no idea that she's doing characters and act outs and punchlines and timing and pacing and full like, like story arcs. And it just is naturally how they talk.

Dan Pashman: Uh, there's also a specific protocol when you're all out to eat.

Matteo Lane: Well, it basically works down – It's like, I'm ordering this and you can't order this because if I order this, then you have that, then I can't eat off your plate. So you start to negotiate who's gonna get what meal, because you're all eating off of each other's plates.

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Matteo Lane: Which I find – I found interesting when you went out with other families that they didn't do that.

Dan Pashman: Right?

Matteo Lane: You know what I mean?

Dan Pashman: In my family it was, it was similar negotiations. It would be sometimes okay for a duplicate, but like, uh, after everyone had had a few bites of whatever they ordered, it would just be like, okay, rotate. And like everyone would pass your plate to the right and you could take one taste of the next person.

Matteo Lane: Are you Italian?

Dan Pashman: No, we're Jewish. 

Matteo Lane: Same thing. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Right.

Matteo Lane: Yeah, same.

Dan Pashman:  When Matteo’s big family meals were happening at his house, he often helped his mom in the kitchen…

Matteo Lane: I remember making like pizza dough and watching the yeast rise and, you know, make, I'm sure our pizzas were shitty, but my mom just allowed us to create and be with her and cook with her and make meatballs with her, make braciole with her, make red sauce with her, make lasagna with her, make pasta with her.

Dan Pashman: Matteo says, growing up, cooking was just one of the many ways he was encouraged to be creative.

Matteo Lane:  So first came singing. I mean, I was always drawing. My mom was an amazing artist and it must be genetic 'cause my brother designs, my sister… Like we all have this, that creative gene. Painting, I went to art school at the Art Institute of Chicago. I went to one semester of community college and took an art class to make my parents happy. 

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Dan Pashman: In the summer of 2002, Matteo made his first trip to Italy. His family friend Giovanni from Sicily had been in the US on an exchange program, and Matteo got the chance to visit Giovanni, to see where the Italian side of his family is from.

Dan Pashman: You, you went there, you're 15 or 16, you had two flights to get to Sicily.

Matteo Lane: Yes. 

Dan Pashman: Uh, you land in what you describe as a shitty little airport in Catania. 

Matteo Lane: It was. It's now, now Catania has a nice airport, but at the time, I swear to God, it was like I landed in like Kuwait and it was like this sort of like rusty old hanger and it was just, I was like, where am I? You know? I think people don't realize, especially, like back then, like now Sicily is like quite like, you know, because of White Lotus and everything, people see Sicily as like this exotic destination for tourists. But at the time, you know, in 2002, you know, there was nothing. I mean it was genuinely Sicily.

Dan Pashman: It was remote.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. And I didn't have cell phones. I just had to hope Giovanni  found me. And then we took a bus and the bus was like, it smelled.

Dan Pashman: It was a two hour bus ride. The trip was not off to a great start. But then, they got off the bus, and hopped on the back of Giovanni’s moped for the final leg of the journey. And suddenly...

Matteo Lane: I felt, I felt like Lizzie McGuire, um, I was on the back like, this is what dreams are made of. 

Dan Pashman: You’ve got the ocean on one side, you get the mountains on the other side. 

Matteo Lane: And you can see Calabria, so that was my favorite thing, is like, you can see the toe of Italy. It was amazing.  I mean, it really, yeah, that, that sort of locked it in for me. Just seeing Sicily that way. I mean, it just felt so ancient. I don't know. I can't describe the feeling besides that I became addicted immediately riding up to his mom's house.  

Dan Pashman: And what were some of the first few things you ate?

Matteo Lane: The first thing we did is we, I remember we, I, we went out to dinner and I was asking if they had gnocchi. 'cause I just liked gnocchi and then they all yelled at me. 'cause that's not what we eat in Sicily. No gnocchi and no ravioli. Um, one of the first things I got for breakfast, which changed my life was, uh, granita.

Dan Pashman: Oh yeah. 

Matteo Lane: Granita Caffè con Panna Brioche, it's, I, I know it's like Italian ice, but it's not.

Dan Pashman: It's more like a coffee slush.

Matteo Lane: It’s a coffee slush. Thank you. Yeah, that's sweet. And then they put it in like a cup and it's half that and half fresh whipped cream. And then they give you a Sicilian brioche, which is a really, really soft brioche with a like little ball in the middle.

Matteo Lane: And it has like, that's a hint of like orange flavor to it, some kind of citrus flavor. And you take the brioche and you dip it into the whipped cream and granita and eat it. And that's my favorite thing to eat in Sicily. 

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Dan Pashman: Matteo fell in love with Italy because of the food, the culture, and the natural beauty. But there was another factor. He writes in his book that what drew him to Sicily as a teenager wasn’t so much discovering where he came from as it was a desire to connect with a part of his identity that he could be proud of, rather than ashamed of. 

Dan Pashman: He was getting bullied in high school for being gay, even before he was out – He just stood out. But he says in Italy, he blended in.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. You know, I was just incredibly internalized with my own homophobia, and school was rough, being, uh, confronted with your identity that you were told was wrong. And so going to Sicily just felt like a totally clean slate. A new world, uh, a totally new beginning. And so maybe for me it was a bit of a sanctuary, you know, it was a place I could go to and not have to deal with, you know, being made fun of for being gay.

Dan Pashman: Right. You, you, you talked about how, in America you quote unquote looked gay in, in Italy… 

Matteo Lane: Oh, I look like I'm crushing pussy. 

Matteo Lane: They're all in Capris and they're all in tight pants and they're all slicked back hair, and doing the YMCA in Speedos on the beach. 

Dan Pashman: All the men are in Speedos.

Matteo Lane: I don't even know what I could do to make myself, I could be fucking a guy on the beach. And they'd be like, ah, he's, he is, they're friends. Like, I mean, there's nothing I could do to make myself look gay.

Dan Pashman: You hit on something that's interesting, Matteo,  and this is something I was curious to talk with you more about. So like there is, in Italian culture, it is a culture that I think of as being one that has a lot of machismo. 

Matteo Lane: Of course they're Latin culture.

Dan Pashman: And so what's interesting to me is that it's also a culture where it's common to see men cook. 

Dan Pashman:  I think like I grew up in New Jersey, right? Italy West, basically. Right. We had this family, our family, friends, the Borans, whose name must have been changed to Ellis Island because they were Italian and Mr. Boran was a contractor. He worked in construction. He drove motorcycles, he smoked cigarettes. He drank, he was friends with all the cops in town. And we would go over to their house for dinner and he was in the kitchen. He was the one cooking.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. Even like in The Godfather, remember when they like go to the mattresses and, uh, what's his face is showing Michael how to make the sauce?

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Matteo Lane: Like he's cooking…

Dan Pashman: Is it Godfather or Goodfellas? 

Matteo Lane: Godfather. 

Dan Pashman: Okay. Yeah. Was it the one where they have the, uh, razor blade to slice the garlic?

Matteo Lane: That might have been Goodfellas, but Godfather was, remember he's like, let me show you, Mike, how to make a bunch of sauce. When you got a bunch of, you know, you dig the meatballs, you put a little wine.

Dan Pashman: Right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And then there's in good f that like they're in jail. You've got all these wise guys, these assassins, and they're in jail and they're talking about how we figured out that if we use this razor blade, we can slice the garlic extra thin for the sauce that we're making. They get this whole setup. So, I'm curious like, like why you think that is? What do you think it says about Italian, the Italian relationship with food. You know, I just, I don't, I can't think of any other culture where that would be the scene when, well, I think it's, these guys were in jail.

Matteo Lane: Well they just have a different relationship with food than most places, you know? But then they have the world's best cars. They have the world's best fashion. They have the world's best food. I think that Italians are just very proud of exporting things that the rest of the world enjoys. So maybe it has something a little more to do with that, right? Like every time I go to someone's house and they're cooking, the first thing they do is they apologize to me because they're not Italian.

Matteo Lane: “I'm so sorry. It's not gonna be good. You're from an Italian family…” I can't tell you how many times I've received that. So there's obviously like an allure to people who are Italian to be like, the expectation is that they came from really good food. 

Dan Pashman: What I hear Matteo saying is that in Italian culture, that machismo is inseparable from food and cooking. It’s like, of course Italian men cook, we’re the best at this!

Matteo Lane: Maybe it's the equivalent of the Italian version of wearing like a Green Bay Packers shirt. I don’t know. Right. Like, you know, like we make great pasta!

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: After Matteo’s first visit to Italy as a teenager 23 years ago, he fell in love with the country. Since then, he's been back at least once a year. In his book, he writes about the little things that only happen in Italy, like going to a famous pizzeria with an American friend and, when she asks for extra cheese on her pizza, the waiter simply says, “No,” and walks away. Or how most cafes refuse to serve cappuccino after 11 AM. Or how Italians refuse to turn on the AC even when it’s 100 degrees outside because they think it’ll make you sick. Over time, Matteo has gained a deeper appreciation for the charms and quirks of Italian culture.

Dan Pashman: Coming up, we hear about Matteo’s turn from art to stand up. And when he starts posting comedic cooking videos on Instagram…which leads to a very unexpected new project. Stick around. 

+++ BREAK +++

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Dan Pashman: Welcome back to The Sporkful, I’m Dan Pashman. And I was recently a guest on a podcast that you should check out, it’s called Scam Goddess, a show that celebrates the funny side of fraud. Each week, Laci Mosley – aka Scam Goddess – dives into the scammiest world of scammers. Laci exposes all the grifters and swindlers you love to hate. I recently joined Laci to unpack the ‘skimpy shrimpy shrimp’ that has been terrorizing family-owned shrimp companies along the Gulf Coast. We also talk about fish scams in general, because these scams are a lot more common than you might think.

Laci Mosley: Sea bass was mislabeled 55% of the time, and you know they mark up some sea bass. Snapper was mislabeled 42% of the time, and that’s making me think of sushi restaurants and you know I love me a little red snapper so that’s pissing me off. So instead of sea bass, they get giant perch or Nile tilapia fish, which you can go catch them in the local lake. And the fish would be less expensive and lower quality. So they’re out here faking the funk and making you pay more for the fish. So I can tell the difference between tilapia, carpies and sea bass, because I’m country. So you can’t put a catfish on my plate and tell me it’s sea bass. Like don’t play in my face. 

Dan Pashman: It was so much fun being on the show, the episodes are great. Like the Fyre Fest Fraudster, fake heiress Anna Delvey, and a whole lot more. She’s joined by guests like Conan O’Brien, Nicole Byers, Ira Madison The Third, and me! So what are you waiting for? Join the CON-gregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.

Dan Pashman: Now back to my conversation with comedian Matteo Lane.

Dan Pashman: While Matteo loved his regular trips to Italy, most of the time he was back in the US, building his career as a standup. He had started hitting open mics at 18, while he was studying oil painting and drawing at the Art Institute of Chicago.

Dan Pashman: In his 20s, he moved to New York to pursue a career as an illustrator, but ended up ditching that to pursue stand up full time. He was featured among the "New Faces" at the influential Just for Laughs Festival, which got him on MTV’s radar. He appeared on the reality comedy series Guy Code. More projects followed, including a podcast called Inside the Closet, and an appearance on The Comedy Lineup on Netflix.

Dan Pashman: Then, in 2022, when he was 36, Matteo released The Advice Special, the first in a series of stand up specials where audience members share their problems, and he offers advice. And that’s when his career really started taking off.

Dan Pashman: In the last few years, Matteo’s built a big following on social media, partly with clips from his audience interactions on stage, but also with food. When he was in Rome, he took his friend Francesco De Carlo, an Italian comedian, for Francesco’s first trip to Starbucks…

Matteo Lane: So now are you, what do you know about Starbucks? 

Francesco De Carlo: Nothing. 

Matteo Lane: Nothing? 

Francesco De Carlo: Nothing. 

Matteo Lane: It's usually something for white women to... It's like their version of therapy. 

Francesco De Carlo: Mm. Do I have to, I don't know if I like it. This is the main point. I don't know what I'm drinking or eating. I'm eating or drinking. What?  

Matteo Lane: Well, how's the, uh, coffee part of that?

Francesco De Carlo: What is, there's no coffee part. Is there a coffee part? No. Maybe there is. This is not a coffee.

Dan Pashman: When Francesco came to New York, Matteo took him to Olive Garden…    

Francesco De Carlo: I just don't understand why chicken and shrimp carbonara, these are three words that shouldn't be together. It's like, I don't know, washing machine, airplane, octopus, like.   

Matteo Lane: Be honest. What do you think?  

Francesco De Carlo: No, I don't like it. I'm sorry. 

Dan Pashman: When Matteo’s at home, he shares cooking videos from his apartment, often making dishes he grew up with. He even had his mom join him to make meatballs. 

Matteo Lane:  So we have beef and we have pork, fresh basil, garlic, Italian breadcrumb, white bread, two eggs, Parmesan cheese, salt and pepper. And then that's about it. And then we have our olive oil, so we're gonna fry it up in the pan. 

Matteo’s Mom: Everyone does their own version, like you just kind of know what you like. But I start with taking the crest off of these guys.

Matteo Lane: Didn't even have to instruct her. She's already on her way to go. 

Dan Pashman: Matteo’s obsession with food and love of cooking eventually led to his new cookbook, entitled Your Pasta Sucks.

Dan Pashman: I would love to ask you to read this excerpt from the intro to your cookbook

Matteo Lane: As Liza Minnelli?

Dan Pashman: However you want.

Matteo Lane: I never meant to write a cookbook, honestly. I should’ve written one about Mariah Carey or Fortnite. That is true. I should have written a book about Mariah Carey or Fortnite. It's hysterical that I wrote a cookbook. I will say though, that my romance with pasta has been my longest and best relationship. Pasta's, exciting and comforting. Pasta is always there right in your pantry. Pasta never ghosts you or lies to you about its size, except for paccheri. Sometimes they're massive. That is true. Sometimes I order paccheri online. I'm saying it's true. I wrote it. I'm saying it's like online. You get paccheri and sometimes there's these giant paccheri and like, you can't tell the difference.

Dan Pashman: Paccheri is like a, it's a, a short tube.

Matteo Lane: Mm-hmm. A wide, like a log.

Dan Pashman: Right. But it's long and also it's long and wide, so it's kind of, so when you cook it, it kind of flattens.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Um, it tends to be very thick, also thick walls. 

Matteo Lane: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Which I like. It's very what I would call toothsinkable.

Matteo Lane: Yeah.

Dan Pashman: But sometimes it's so big that you can't fit a single piece in your mouth.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. I mean, that's like when you see these like white women on Instagram cooking pasta, and then they use this oversized fusilli that you could never serve to anyone. I don't know where you would eat this really, besides that. It's sort of like, uh, it just looks like a show, like a spettacolo.

Dan Pashman: I, I find those, like a fusilloni, those actually get a little bit limp when you cook them. So they will fold over and you can get and get those in your mouth more easily than a gigantic paccheri.

Matteo Lane: Yeah, it is. Like, but I do like paccheri, like it's one of my favorite pastas.

Dan Pashman: It’s true. Sinkable and dey.

Matteo Lane: That's what I like about it. It's the closest thing to eating dough, I guess, you know?,

Dan Pashman: But how do you manage one that's too big? Do you, do you slice it?

Matteo Lane: Well, are we talking about anal or are we talking about anal or are we talking about pasta? Poppers? Um, yeah. I need poppers when I eat paccheri, that's what I do. 

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS} Are we still talking about pasta?

Matteo Lane: I'm under… I have no clue at this point, to be honest with you. 

Matteo Lane: But it's true. I wrote this book and well, number one, I wanted to originally call the book I'm Not An Author and then I'm Not A Chef, you know, because I'm neither. Um, but I am a writer. So for me, when I was talking to my publisher, I was like, I'm not Martha Stewart. Like, I'm not thinking about what crostini goes well with what. Look, the recipes you saw on YouTube are basically the recipes that I could do. I do them well. I said, but I'm a comedian. If I wrote a book, people want stories. So can we do a hybrid, a short series of essays that are funny along with recipes?

Dan Pashman: The publisher agreed, and that’s how this collection of recipes, stories, and jokes called Your Pasta Sucks was born. It includes sidebars like a checklist to determine whether you have an Italian grandma. If her house has a living room that no one has ever been in, give yourself one point. Another point if the carpet is red and one more if you can see the vacuum lines. Ten points if the subjects of the paintings and photography in the house are limited to Jesus, grandkids, and mall-quality scenes from Italy.

Matteo Lane: And I worked with JJ Goode, who's a great writer, who helped me with recipes and, and putting this whole thing together because I can write a million stories, that I did. But writing recipes, I don't – I just know from what my mom taught me. 

Dan Pashman: Right.

Matteo Lane: So that was also tricky trying to get the recipe part right. And get this right and get that right. And so there was a lot of back and forth with that. And then they hired a food tester to make all the recipes and, you know, that was also interesting to see. And then they were arguing with my sister 'cause they're like, the meatballs are too soft. And she's like, they're meant to be that soft. So she was going back and forth with them about the meatballs, 

Dan Pashman: A lot of the recipes are for dishes Matteo grew up cooking and eating, like one he calls Pasta della Mamma.

Matteo Lane: That's one of my favorite pasta dishes. So when I was a kid, my mom, you know, was trying to think of like a quick pasta, because I had working parents and so, you know, she was like, what's a quick pasta that I can kind of make up?

Matteo Lane: She literally made up a mix between like an American Alfredo, a cacio e pepe, and a carbonara. So it's basically room temperature butter and egg yolk, fresh Parmesan cheese, uh, some cream or milk and pepper and a little bit of garlic powder. And you mix it together into a paste. And then when you throw it on the hot pasta, it turns into a cream.

Matteo Lane: It takes less than like five minutes to prepare and then you can eat it with any meal. And I just loved it because my dad would always wanna make like fish or like steak and I just, ugh, I don't like it, you know? So then my mom would make that as a side dish and I would just eat that 'cause I loved it so much.

Matteo Lane: And then I made it on YouTube, uh, for my cooking channel. And then that ended up being everyone's favorite recipe. I got so many messages and pictures of people being like, oh my god, Pasta Della Mamma. That was our favorite one. 

Dan Pashman: His book also has recipes for Italian dishes Matteo has fallen in love with as an adult. Like carbonara.

Matteo Lane: That was the first dish that I had not grown up with that I learned about going to Italy and then learning how to make it only through Italy, and then finally mastering it and bringing it back here.

Matteo Lane: And it was like a lot of little elements that required me to constantly be going back and forth between America and Italy over years to learn. And so for me, that's kind of a representation of like how this book is here, because it was like, oh yeah, it doesn't just have to be what you grew up with. It could also be something that you love and learn and then bring that back home.

Dan Pashman: Right. I feel like. Egg yolks are interesting because there's also a, a, a bunch of Asian rice dishes where you like, take an egg yolk and put it on top and mix it in. And like, obviously it's in carbonara, but like, I just think as a general move, it should be like more pasta sauces should be like, oh, you want it to be like rich and creamy, but you don't want a gallon of heavy cream?

Matteo Lane: You don't want it to taste too eggy either, though. That's the other trick too. Right. But yeah, I agree. It's like a nice binding ingredient. It's, it's, yeah, it's creamy, it's protein. It's, you know, it's not heavy whipping cream. Yeah. I really love, I even see some of these, like Instagram, they’re in Trastevere in Rome where they're mixing carbonara with red sauce or like, like they're doing like a mix of the sauces and stuff.

Dan Pashman: Really?

Matteo Lane: Yeah, it's interesting. Without the guanciale

Dan Pashman: And they haven't been attacked?

Matteo Lane: No, but they're also like super Romans who are trying to do like cool Instagram stuff, so everyone's like, it's fine.

Dan Pashman: But that is interesting because there's such a stereotype of Italians being so set in their ways, like this is the one way to do it. 

Matteo Lane: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: And uh, what I've learned when I did my own travels in Italy is that there, there are new ideas and there are people trying new things, 'cause of course, it's art, it's culture, it's, there's always gonna be new ideas. So the stereotype is a little bit unfair.

Matteo Lane: Yeah. Like Luciano in Rome and Camp Fiori, he took carbonara and did his own version of carbonara. So it's all the same ingredients. It was just made differently. 

Dan Pashman: I, uh, this may offend you, but I did a cookbook last year that was on non-traditional pasta sauces, and I collaborated with, uh, a friend of mine, Irene Yu, um, who's a recipe writer, chef, cookbook author herself. And, um, so my cookbook includes the recipe for kimchi carbonara.

Matteo Lane: Hmm. Who is it for?

Dan Pashman: Anyone who likes delicious things!

Matteo Lane: Yeah. How…? Kimchi is like fermented… 

Dan Pashman: … cabbage. 

Matteo Lane: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: Yeah. Spicy, but, well, when you saute the kimchi, the spice softens and the crunch of the cabbage softens a little bit, so it adds like an acidic tang that cuts. So you get the salty smokey meatiness, you’ve got the rich creaminess of the egg and the cheese, and then you add this acidity and spice that cuts through. And it is,

Matteo Lane: Who… is it for Italians or Koreans, or is it for everybody in between? Who's not gonna get angry about it?

Dan Pashman: For everybody, but Italians, I think the Koreans are… I don't know. I shouldn't make such sweeping statements, but I think that kimchi is so bedrock for Koreans, that for Korean Americans, it's like there's just always kimchi around. 

Matteo Lane: Yeah. 

Dan Pashman: And so the idea of being like, let's see if, let's try kimchi on this. I mean, you know, Ann Kim, a chef in Minneapolis puts kimchi on pizza. You know, like now, now her kimchi pizza is in…

Matteo Lane: I'd rather that than pineapple.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHS] Well, anyway, you gotta try it sometime.

Matteo Lane: I'll try it.

Dan Pashman: All right. All right.

Dan Pashman: [LAUGHING] I’m not convinced that's true. 

Matteo Lane: I'll try it. Sure. 

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Dan Pashman: Matteo, you got a lot of hot takes in this cookbook. I would like to do a lightning round of your cookbook’s hot takes. You ready? 

Matteo Lane: Yep. 

Dan Pashman: All right. Here we go. Fresh pasta is not better than dried pasta. It's different.

Matteo Lane: It's for different sauces. So, yeah, neither one's betteR. I think the idea of fresh pasta is over romanticized. You see these like old Italian women making it in the window and then someone's like, it is a fresh pasta. Oh, it's fresh. Better than that shit dried pasta from a factory. And it's like, no dried pasta just has to be made differently because it's like pressurized as it's being made, so you actually can't make dry pasta unless you have the proper machinery to do it. But also it's just for different textures, for different foods. So, you know, you wouldn't use fresh pasta like a tagliatelle with carbonara because the carbonara is like that sheep milk, that sharp cheese with the guanciale. It requires a strong pasta. A hard pasta to be able to stand up to it.

Dan Pashman: Right. You can't make fresh pasta super al dente.

Matteo Lane: Right. 

Dan Pashman: And that's what people do. I was talking to somebody the other day who was like, I went to Italy and you know, I, I was so excited to eat the fresh pasta, but it wasn't really so al dente it fresh.

Matteo Lane: Right. Because it's fresh. 

Dan Pashman: Because it's fresh. Exactly. Hard agree on that.

Dan Pashman: Ok, next one of your hot takes for our lightning round. You set up your Nonna’s lasagna recipe by saying she only makes it once a year because it's such a pain in the ass.

Matteo Lane: It is a pain in the ass. She's tired. She had seven kids. It's enough.

Dan Pashman: But this dovetails with my long standing opinion, Mateo, that lasagna in general is a pain in the ass. It's a lot of work.

Matteo Lane: It depends on your background. When you're my Nonna and you've had seven kids and you had one marriage that you know, was very traumatic and you're trying to struggle to stay alive, um, lasagna's not really at the top of the list of enjoying yourself.

Dan Pashman: Right. 

Matteo Lane: Um, when you have no kids, uh… [LAUGHS]

Dan Pashman: You're pointing to yourself.   

Matteo Lane: Yeah. And you're just, you know, it's a Sunday.

Dan Pashman: You have eight hours on Sunday to kill.

Matteo Lane: Yeah, why not? I love it. I play some nice music. Usually my friend, Chef Maco, who's a really great Italian chef in New York City, he'll come over and so him and I will just cook together.

Matteo Lane: We'll make lasagna and we love the whole process. Make the bolognese. Honestly, the hardest part is just making the bolognese and letting that cook for four hours and then the assembly, you know, it's pretty basic, but that's my Nonna’s lasagna. So I'll either make like lasagna di Bologna like the, with the fresh pasta and like the ragu and the bechamel, or I do what's more considered a southern pasta lasagna, which is more with red sauce and meats and ricotta and all that stuff.

Right.

Dan Pashman: Um, well I'm with your Nonna, too much trouble. 

Matteo Lane: Yeah. My Nona now just watches 1000-lb Sisters in her basement and she's good to go.

Last item for the lightning round:  You used to be against eggplant parm, you shared my skepticism of eggplant parm. 

Matteo Lane: Uhhuh. 

Dan Pashman: What was your skepticism and what changed?

Matteo Lane: I, I think before I was like really into eggplant, uh, which is such a gay euphemism. Um, but I, but I remember living in Italy, I was living in Umbria at a painting school in a small, tiny painting school. And the chef, she would make, they'd say, lasagna di melanzane, and I was like, just make it with pasta. Why are you making lasagna with eggplant? I hated that idea. Then I finally ate it and I was like, oh, like eggplant parmesan, like the eggplant sort of melanzane di lasagna. I just became obsessed with it. And then I, Sicily, they have a lot of eggplan, for like alla norma and I just fell in love with eggplant now. So now you can't get me away from it.

Dan Pashman: So you just you had to learn to accept eggplant in that use.,

Matteo Lane: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dan Pashman: Okay. I love–

Matteo Lane: But I always prefer pasta. If it's gonna be between eggplant or pasta for lasagna, I go pasta.

Dan Pashman: Yeah. I love grilled eggplant. I love roasted eggplant. I don't, I don't love eggplant parm. I don't love when the inside of the eggplant gets a little too mushy.

Matteo Lane: I know. But you got like Ribalta makes a really good one in New York. It's really good there.

Dan Pashman: I just feel like I love chicken parm so much.

Matteo Lane: I know, it doesn't exist in Italy. 

Dan Pashman: I know, but it's just all I can think when I'm eating eggplant parm is, I wish this was chicken parm.

Matteo Lane: I took Francesco de Carlo to an Italian restaurant in Ohio and he ordered chicken parm 'cause he was so curious. And they brought linguine, overcooked linguine with some weird rose sauce and then they had the chicken on top. He was so, he looked like he was so confused by the entire thing. He couldn't even wrap his mind around it. Now that being said,  I'm not one of those like American-Italians who are like, only the Italians are the right way. Like I love that Italian-Americans as a community took a bunch of southern dishes and mixed them together when they moved to America and created these new things. I love them.

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: You talked about how, you know, you grew up with these big family meals, cooking in the kitchen with your mom and the whole extended family, everyone helping. Um, now so many of those recipes are in a cookbook, in your cookbook. 

Matteo Lane: Mm-hmm.

Dan Pashman: How does it feel for you to bring all those recipes together into this book?,

Matteo Lane: Well, I mean, like, when I was writing it and going over all the recipes with JJ, it was basically to get it done.

Matteo Lane: I'm like, I have, I'm shooting a movie. I'm on a world tour. I have to write new material. I have to, you know. And then when everything came together. You know, like to think that like my mom or my sister or my aunt Cindy or my grandma, all these women that were around me or raised me to have their books, their recipes published for so many people to see, you know, it kind of, I dunno, it, it really made me emotional in a way that I wasn't expecting.

Matteo Lane: I got the book and I was like, oh my God, like, that's so sweet. Like my Nonna’s recipe is in here. And I, it made me a little emotional. It was a, it was a nice homage to my family because they really shaped how I walk through life and how I do standup, which has given me so much opportunity. So for me it was like a big thank you back to them.  

Matteo Lane: Which, and another thing I say too is like, I think the best way to sort of carry or pass down tradition or stay connected to one's roots can be cooking. Because if I'm making a meatball and I'm rolling it, I'm rolling it the same way my mom did. And her mom did. And her mom did. And her mom did. So it's like even that movement in your hand, that movement in and of itself is something that's tradition, that's been passed down. It means you survived.

Dan Pashman: Right, right. What did your family think of it? 

Matteo Lane: Uh, my mom cried when she got it, of course, 'cause she's Italian. She'll cry to salad to be honest with you. If it's beautiful. She's like, it's so beautiful. 

MUSIC

Dan Pashman: That’s Matteo Lane, his new book is called Your Pasta Sucks, it's available now, wherever books are sold. Matteo is also taking his stand up all over the US with his Can’t Stop Laughing Tour! See if he’s coming to your city at matteolanecomedy.com.

Dan Pashman: Next week on the show, I talk with Roy Choi, the chef who revolutionized the LA food scene with his food truck Kogi. He was one of the very first chefs to get into the food truck scene, and also one of the very first to combine different cuisines into tacos. His Korean barbecue tacos are legendary. Roy was one of the very first doing that, but as you'll hear, we hear his story. He had to overcome a lot of struggles before he was able to attain all that success.

Dan Pashman:  It's gonna be a great conversation. That's next week. Why wait for that one checkout last week's show where I go on a New York pizza tour with Scott Wiener, the founder of Scott's Pizza Tours. I joined his Sunday bus tour where Scott has a school bus, but no plan on these tours. He just decides which pizzerias to take people to on the fly.